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The table below shows the economic growth rates (as measured by the change in per capita Real
GDP from 1990 to 2010) for the 10 largest oil exporting countries of 2010. The table indicates that
the ten largest oil exporting countries had an average increase of about 44% in per capita Real
GDP over this time period. Conversely, the ten largest oil importing countries in 2010 (U.S.,
China, Japan, India, South Korea, Germany, Italy, France, Singapore, and Spain) had increases
in per capita Real GDP over this time period that averaged 78%. (Information is from the Penn
World Tables and International Petroleum Monthly.)
Ten Largest Oil Exporting Countries in 2010
Country Change in percapita RealGDP 1990-2010
Saudi Arabia 30%
Russia 20%
Iran 62%
Nigeria 45%
United Arab Emirates -6%
Angola 170%
Iraq 27%
Venezuela 12%
Norway 55%
Mexico 27%
Appendix: Future Economic Growth – Doom or Boom?
As discussed earlier in this chapter, most countries in the world have been achieving both
absolute economic growth and per capita economic growth recently. But will this trend continue?
Can economic growth be sustained in the future? One viewpoint is that economic growth cannot
be sustained in the future. This opinion is typically based on a number of related ideas:
1. The world’s population is growing faster than its capacity to produce food. This
viewpoint can be traced back to Thomas Robert Malthus and his “Essay on Population”,
discussed earlier in this chapter. The Malthusian predictions have not come to pass.
Nonetheless, there is still strong support for the belief that they will eventually come to pass.
In 1968, Paul R. Ehrlich published, “The Population Bomb”. This book argued that population
growth was outstripping the world’s capacity to produce food. Ehrlich wrote, “The battle to feed
all of humanity is over…In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to
death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” This prediction obviously did not
come true. In fact, the number of deaths from famine in the last decades of the 20 th century
was much smaller than the number of deaths from famine in the last decades of the 19 th
century. In later writings, Ehrlich predicted rising food prices and a falling life expectancy. In
reality, real food prices have generally been falling and life expectancies have generally been
rising, particularly in developing countries.
Example 10: In developing countries, wheat production per acre increased by over 5-fold
between 1950 and 2000. Life expectancy in developing countries has increased by more than 20
years since 1950.
2. Economic growth combined with population growth will hasten the depletion of
nonrenewable resources. This viewpoint assumes that the more rapidly economic output
increases, the more rapidly nonrenewable resources (e.g. fossil fuels, metals, minerals, etc.)
will be depleted. It seems logical that increased economic output would increase depletion of
nonrenewable resources. But it hasn’t happened yet. As economic output has increased, the
real prices of nonrenewable resources have generally been falling and the known reserves
have generally been rising.
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14 - 9 Economic Growth